Allies
by Scorpion29
Summary: The final installement in a series that began with All it Takes, this final one shot ties up all loose ends with Joey and Kaiba in this tale of friendship prevailing during hard times. R


I know that it took a while, but here it is. I'm sorry it took me so long and I am sorry if it isn't as good as the others that came before it. I tried my best and I hope all of you enjoy!

Allies

"Joey! Hurry up!" Yugi yelled at the closed door. He was standing right outside of the blonde's room bouncing from foot to foot, worried that they were going to be late.

"I'm coming!" The door was flung open to reveal Joey Wheeler at his messiest. His white collared shirt was buttoned wrong, his sneakers were untied, his zipper was down and there was a huge tear in his school jacket. He looked just as he usually did, but the really big difference was what rested on his head. There was a dark blue baseball cap that was on sideways, his hair sticking out every which way.

"What are you wearing?" Yugi demanded as they dashed out of the apartment and outside.

"It's called a hat, and it just happens to be my favorite one!" Joey told him cheerfully. "I found it last night while I was looking for the glue."

"What did you need glue for?" Yugi questioned.

"I wanted to get high," Joey replied as he rolled his eyes and Yugi's nearly bugged out of his head.

"What took you too so long?" Yami asked as they hooked up with him at the corner.

"I was trimming my toenails," Joey responded as he shook his head, then told them the truth. "I couldn't find my socks."

"Joey, about the glue..." Yugi began.

"I was kidding! I needed it to finish up my project!" Joey watched his friend sigh in relief. "Honestly, did you think that I'd want to get high off glue? Man, I can get high off life; I don't need anything else!"

"Yeah, we already knew that Joey!" Tristan snickered as he knocked the cap off the blonde's head.

"Hey!" Joey exclaimed as he snapped up his hat. "You leave my hat alone! You're just jealous because you don't have a hat this cool!" He sniffed and raised his nose into the air in a snooty way.

"Riiight," Tristan said patronizingly.

"Mokuba called last night," Yugi piped up. "He seemed a like he was doing well, a little stressed but well."

"I swear that Kaiba needs to take better care of him," Yami sniffed and Yugi realized that mentioning Mokuba had not been the smartest thing in the world. Especially when Joey's spine stiffened and he glowered at Yami. "Really, he relies far too much on benign neglect, letting Mokuba do as he wishes and only noticing him after he has done something that he has not approved of. What kind of role model is that?"

"I'm entering in a small Duel Monsters tournament!" Yugi interrupted.

"Really, every time something goes wrong, who does he always end up having to turn to? It's not Kaiba because he's the one that is always in trouble, but the poor thing has to come to us. I would not be surprised if he looked up to us more than Kaiba. I cannot even imagine growing up in such a cold environment as that mansion," Yami continued on, heedless of Yugi. He was warming up to his favorite topic and nothing Yugi said or did would deter him.

"Oh, shut up, Yami!" Joey snarled and everyone turned to stare at him. "You have no idea what is going on between Kaiba and his little brother! You have no right to judge him on the small amount of information that you do have. You claim to be such a fair and magnanimous person, but you aren't. You have not yet once stopped to look at this situation from Kaiba's point of view. You just look down your nose and make assumptions. Heaven knows that each and everyone of us have more going for us than what people first believe. I just hope that when you find what is really going on you feel sick with guilt. Absolutely sick."

And with that the blond stormed off muttering to himself under his breath his friends watching him uncertainly from a distance.

"I don't know what has gotten into him," Yami broke the silence and Yugi smiled tremulously as he shrugged his shoulders. "It's almost as though he actually likes that stuck up pig."

By the time the rest of the gang had reached the school yard, Joey was already inside speaking quietly with Seto who was at his desk.

"So you decided to wear the do-rag," Wheeler commented and the brunette nodded wearily. "Still feeling tired? You got bags under your eyes."

"Yeah, did you notice the addition?" Kaiba murmured as he spun a pencil between his long fingers.

"The hair poking out the edges?" Joey questioned and Kaiba nodded an affirmative. "Make it look more real, nice touch."

"I notice that you're wearing a hat too," Seto pointed out and Joey flushed.

"Well, I didn't want you to feel alone or stupid," Joey explained as he swiped at his nose, his usual sign of embarrassment. "I know how it feels to be laughed at by the entire class, it always helps to have someone else around to share the burden."

"I highly doubt that anyone would dare to laugh at me to my face," Seto stated a telltale glint in his eyes. "I may not be at my best, but I assure you I am still _the_ Seto Kaiba. No one gets away with laughing at me." A smirk twisted his lips, and Joey was relieved to see the show of spirit in his friend.

"Well, class is about to start, I better sit down," Joey said casually before slouching over to his seat.

The bell rang and the rest of the class flooded in. Most of the students were whispering about Kaiba and his new style, it was just so different to see him like this. Yami was studiously ignoring both Joey and Kaiba, while Yugi fluttered nervously about him, unsure of how to act, who to go to. Tristan and Duke were placing bets on who would be the first to give in and apologize, while Bakura and Malik were whispering plans for their next evil deed to each other.

"Class, please settle down," the teacher called as she walked in. "Mr. Wheeler it is time for you to remove your hat, I do not tolerate such disrespect in my room." Joey removed his hat, but not before grumbling about it under his breath.

"What about Kaiba, Miss Yukimura?" Malik piped up from the back of the classroom. "He's wearing a head covering."

"He has an excuse," the teacher dismissed the issue easily, and started her lesson. It took about ten minutes, but eventually the entire class settled down and began to pay attention. There were of course a few exceptions to this, but that was to be expected. Malik, Marik and Bakura were passing notes, hocking spitballs, flinging paperclips and making rude noises. Yami was stewing over what Joey had said to him, Tristan was daydreaming about Serenity, Yugi was worrying about Joey and Yami, and Joey was doodling on his paper.

After what seemed like an eternity for Joey, lunch finally came and he exited class with the rest of his fellow students, but he kept his eyes on Kaiba who he knew would not be going to the cafeteria. Instead the older boy slipped up a flight of stairs that led to the roof and the blonde followed him a few minutes later once he had managed to lose his friends. He had deliberately packed a lunch that day so he could eat with the eldest Kaiba.

Up on the roof he found Kaiba leaning against the chain link fence, his lunch lying next to him untouched, a book in hand. His attention was completely focused on his book and his sharp blue eyes were narrowed in concentration. He didn't look any different than he usually did, except for the hat; the hat was the only thing that made him seem off.

"What's up Kaiba!?" Joey bellowed flopping down next to his friend. Seto started and turned to look at Joey, slight annoyance in his eyes.

"I am reading," he said pointedly before returning to the page he had been examining.

"I can see that, but it's lunch and you should be eatin'" Joey told him as he pulled his own food out of his lunch bag. "If you don't eat you won't be able to keep up your strength."

"I'm not hungry," Kaiba responded tersely. "It's one of the effects."

"You should try and eat something anyways," Joey wheedled, nudging Seto's lunch closer to him. "I'm sure you got something in there that'll make you want to eat."

"I honestly don't know what's in there, but I'm not hungry…at all," Kaiba sighed and closed his book. "You're not going to leave me alone are you?"

"Nope, not about this, you're skinny enough as it is. You need to get some actual meat on your bones." Joey spoke around a mouthful of food, but by now Seto was so used to this he had no trouble translating.

"Fine, fine," Kaiba growled, snapping open his lunch. He pulled out all sorts of junk food that he liked, but rarely ever ate because it wasn't healthy. Suspiciously he eyed the food and then glowered at the blonde.

"What!?" Joey exclaimed. "That's a damn good-looking lunch, I'm jealous!"

"I don't need you looking after me Joey, you are not my father or my doctor, I can handle my own health," Kaiba said icily.

"All evidence to the contrary, and I don't need to be your doctor or your father, cuz I'm your friend and that's just as important," Joey retorted.

"You are an annoyance," Seto insisted and Joey shrugged as he inhaled the rest of his lunch.

"You don't know the half of it; I'm being down right lovely at the moment. Really annoying is when I start doing the airplane thing with your chips so you eat them," Joey explained as he picked up one of the aforementioned pieces of food. "Bubububuububa, this is chip number one asking for permission to land!" Joey zoomed the chip around in front of Kaiba's face. "Please open the hanger."

"Give me the damn thing," Kaiba growled, snatching the food from Joey and eating. "Happy now?"

"Nope, you got an entire bag to go!" Joey held up the bag and grinned from ear to ear. "Is the runway clear?"

All too soon the period ended and the two headed back to the classroom, Joey cracking lewd jokes and Kaiba trying to remain aloof. They descended the stairs and were just inside the classroom door when Joey bent down to tie his shoelace. Both of them were too involved in conversation to even suspect what was about to happen. Just as Joey was about to stand up he was shoved to the side by Bakura and at the same time Marik snatched the leather do-rag off of Kaiba's head.

Everyone went silent as they saw what the stolen item had been covering.

Seto stood there shame, anger and embarrassment smothering him, while what seemed like every pair of eyes in the whole of Japan stared at him in shock. Tears swelled up in his throat, choking off his ability to speak and defend himself. It felt as though his stomach had dropped all the way down to the core of the earth and he could barely breathe from the weight on his chest. He fought to regain composure as his fellow peers broke out into furious exclamations and whispers, their eyes never leaving his bald head.

Joey was the first one to recover and he did the first thing that came to mind.

"What the hell's wrong with you people!?" he shouted, his face turning red with anger. "Don't you have any manners!?" He had his hands clenched into fists at his side as he glared at the other teenagers.

"No," Kaiba said quietly, but his voice carried. "They don't have manners, why would they? They are only the spawn of common people." He placed his hand on Joey's shoulder as a silent way to tell him to back down and to ask for forgiveness for the insult to him.

Holding his head high, the CEO of Kaiba Corp. made his way through the crowd of the classroom to his seat and gracefully slid into it. He met no one's eyes and refused to acknowledge those who watched him openly and covertly. The proud young man did not back down from the challenge laid out before him, he did not go home like he so desperately wanted to but instead remained in school enduring the total humiliation. When the end of the day came he calmly walked out of the building, acting as though nothing was different. Ignoring the fact that he was bald and that he was now the main spectacle of the school so as to hold on to what little dignity he had left.

As soon as he was inside the shelter of his home he sprinted to his room, closed the door and collapsed on his bed. Even surrounded by objects of comfort he felt only a deep terrible pain deep within his heart. He wanted to scream, to rage and above all cry, but he kept these wayward emotions in check. It would do no good for him to lose control; he needed to come up with a plan to salvage what had been lost today.

On the other side of town, in a much shabbier and beaten down apartment Joey Wheeler was pacing around his room boiling with anger. His split lip had just recently stopped bleeding and he still held an ice pack to his left eye in a vain attempt to keep down the swelling that he knew was going to come. As soon as the bell had rung he had rushed outside and waited for Bakura, Marik and Malik to come out. A rough and violent scuffle had ensued and though one couldn't rightly say that Joey had won, he sure had raised hell and made his point. The three troublemakers would be nursing their own wounds the next day.

"I gotta do something," the bruised blonde grumbled. "I can't just sit around on my ass; I can't let Seto go through this all alone. Damn it all, he's gone through enough on his own because he's too damn proud to ask for help. Not this time moneybags."

Then inspiration hit.

"DAD!!" Joey hollered loud enough to wake the dead and his sufficiently drunk father.

X-X-X-X-X

The next day Seto walked into school, no hat on his head in an attempt to hide what had been discovered yesterday. He kept his head held up high and his eyes cold. He would not allow anyone to damage his pride and self-respect today. He was a Kaiba after all and they were known for their merciless nature and stubbornness. And damned if he'd let them know that they'd hurt him or accept any of their unwanted pity.

Unbeknownst to the CEO, Yami was watching him, but not with pity or curiosity, but with guilt. Absolutely sick with it; just as Joey had wanted him to be. The three thousand year old pharaoh could not believe how wrong he had been about the man before him and he had no idea how to atone for what he had done. He knew that Kaiba would never accept an apology in a million years and even if he listened to the crimson eyed duelist he would never let him say his piece without putting in his own two cents.

"You should just apologize," Yugi told him quietly and the older of the two started.

"I know, but how am I supposed to do it? I know he won't let me do it easily," the pharaoh muttered. "He never has before so why would he now?"

"You should just go up and say you're sorry, you'll feel a lot better after you do and Kaiba will too even though he won't say it," Yugi pointed out candidly and Yami sighed. "That would also fix things between you and Joey, though you should apologize to him too when he feels better."

"I know, I know," Yami grumbled. "I'll apologize later."

At that moment, Bakura, Marik and Malik slouched in, bandages liberally covering their faces and knuckles. None of them looked very happy at all and it didn't take Yugi very long to put two and two together to figure out that Joey was home sick with injuries from fighting the three of them. He sighed in exasperation at Joey pugnacious ways and the immaturity of the three tricksters. Yugi was also very worried about his friend because from the state the other three was in he knew that Joey had to be in an equal or worse state with all evidence tending toward worse.

Class started a few minutes later and everyone fell into their usual routine, with only a few people sneaking covert glances at Kaiba who stared stonily ahead ignoring them. Yami was scribbling out different ways to apologize to Kaiba without losing too much face and Yugi was worrying about Joey. Kaiba also was wondering as to where Wheeler had gone off to, but he sure as hell was not going to condescend to ask any of the twerps where the blond had gotten off to.

Then about midway through the morning classes the door to the classroom banged open and Joey Wheeler came striding in. He was as sloppy as usual with his school uniform stained and askew. It looked like the sun was rising in his face due to the florid colors erupting around his black eye and his split lip had a few very crooked stitches that made it obvious that they had not been done in a hospital. And yet again he had a hat on, but today it was a knit winter cap that covered all his hair.

The teacher squawked angrily at his disruptive entrance, but he merely ignored her as his eyes swept across the room to land on Kaiba. Just as he had expected the ruthless duelist wasn't wearing any hats, openly defying anyone to say anything about his lack of hair. A grim smile slashed across Joey's face as he turned to the board, picked up a piece of chalk and wrote across the board in big sprawling letters:

ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS

Then silently he pulled off his hat and threw it in the trash.

He was as bald as Kaiba and his eyes dared anyone to say anything as he made his way to his seat and slid into it. Silence reigned for a moment before Yugi stood up and clapped, his eyes shining with tears for his friend's courage and his enemy's pain. Everyone soon joined in and it was a few minutes before the teacher was able to gain control of the class again and force them to work.

Kaiba got up to sharpen his pencil a little while later and as he passed Joey's desk he dropped a note. Joey quickly opened it up and found in small neat script this simple message:

_Watch the five-o-clock news._

_Seto_

X-X-X-X-X

Sprawled out in front of his TV Joey munched happily on junk food as he haphazardly scribbled answers to his homework down on crumpled paper. The news had just come on and he was only half paying attention as he fumbled his way through a complex math problem he only half-knew how to do. He was alone in the apartment that night because his father was doing a night shift so a friend could go out of town for his daughter's wedding.

So absorbed in his homework was he that he didn't hear the anchor announce that they had a special guest on the show that night to make a public statement. It wasn't until Seto actually started talking that he realized what was going on and he snapped his head up to see and hear what was happening.

Seto was sitting next to the woman, his head shining in the bright lights looking stylish in a new trench coat/suit ensemble. His slashing blue eyes burned into the audience as he spoke clearly and well. Joey knew that without a doubt, every Seto fan was still a major fan even though he had lost his head of dark brown hair. Seto would probably look good in anything and no matter what the hell he did to himself the girls would still fall all over him. Joey listened carefully to what his friend was saying.

"I am here to set a few things straight. Yes, I do have cancer. A couple of months ago I was diagnosed with having a brain tumor. I have since gone through radiation, which is still on going, but they say the chances of it killing the tumor are very high. I am not going to be giving up the company, though I will be taking it a little bit easier. I am also thinking of expanding the company into medical research.

"On a more personal note, I must say that I went through a very rough patch. For a little while I even entertained the notion of killing myself to save everyone connected to me intimately the pain of having to live through a prolonged death. But right before I made the decision I called up someone I knew and they talked me out of it. They helped me to realize that life is a very precious thing and that it would do no good to kill myself.

"Not only did they save me then, but they have saved me time and time again. They helped hold me together when I thought I might lose the only family I have left and they were there when I lost my hair and when I was so sick from radiation I was vomiting almost constantly. They gave me words of wisdom and even shaved and waxed their head in order for me to not be alone in this time of need. This person gave me so much hope, laughter and support that I know if they hadn't been there for me I wouldn't be here talking to you. They were my saving grace, my ally and above all my friend. I say this because I want to thank you. Thank you a million times. Merci mille fois. Muchos gracias. Doomo arigatoo gozaimasu. My dear ally and friend Joseph Wheeler."

Joey sat there in disbelief a big smile on his face and he knew that everything was going to be just fine.

In a big white mansion across town, Kaiba had a small smirk on his own lips as he thought about how Joey had to look right about then. The smile soon disappeared as his baby brother tackled him and they engaged in a tickle war.

Epilogue

"Sorry to keep you waiting!" Joey gasped, running up to his friend. He was bent over and breathing hard from the long run he had just made. "My professor just wouldn't shut up!"

"Excuses, excuses," Kaiba chided as he smiled warmly down at his friend.

A few years had passed and it had been kind on the both of them. They were enrolled in different colleges and they only got to see each other once a month and it was usually a good bet that Joey would be late. The blond always ended up running up a good ten to twenty minutes late, his bright blond hair blowing back in the wind.

"Yeah well, sorry your highness! Some of us can't order around their teachers!" Joey huffed at the brunette CEO.

"You never cease to amuse me Joey," Seto chuckled. "Let's get to the café, it's warmer there."

"Ha ha ha!" Joey growled as he straightened and followed his friend to the café a few blocks away. "So you said in your last e-mail that your doc said he thinks the cancer's gone into remission for good?"

"Yes, I've had no problems with it since high school, so they believe that I'm pretty much set, but not to get too complacent. There is always the chance of it coming back," Seto explained. "But if it does, my company will probably have a cure for it by then."

"You're so damn cocky," Joey mumbled. "But that's good to hear that Kaiba Corp. is making progress with the medicine. Are you guys still only focusing on cancer or are you gonna branch out into other diseases too?"

"We're going to branch out very soon now, but don't you go leaking that. If you do I'll kill you." Kaiba held open the door for Wheeler and the two of them entered the small, warm café.

* * *

REVIEWING KEEPS ME WRITING!!!! 


End file.
